Trump is raising stakes, not planning to attack Greenland and Canada – Merezhko

A Member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Servant of the People faction, chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign policy and interparliamentary cooperation, Oleksandr Merezhko, has explained that U.S. President Donald Trump's statements about Greenland and Canada are a strategy of raising the stakes, inherent in his business approach.

He said this in an interview with the Ukrainian News agency.

"This is raising the stakes. Even John Bolton (Trump's former national security adviser), who is now his critic, said that there is absolutely no chance that he will use force to seize Greenland. It is enough to read Trump's autobiography, which describes how at first he makes very high bets that can cause shock, and then he begins to fight for some kind of compromise," Merezhko emphasized.

Greenland, according to Merezhko, is of strategic importance in the context of the current confrontation between the U.S. and China, and for the States, Greenland is a strategically important region in the context of national security.

"From the point of view of a businessman, this is the right strategy for concluding deals. If you want to achieve something specific in your favor, you have to raise the bar. Sometimes it sounds quite shocking, even as in the case of Canada. But everyone understands that no one is seriously trying to seize Canada by force," the MP said about Trump's methods.

Trump's statements about strategic territories should be perceived in the context of his style of conducting politics: aggressive statements as a tool for achieving his goals in the international arena, Merezhko noted.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on January 11, Denmark sent a letter to the Trump team, in which it stated its readiness to discuss strengthening the security of Greenland. Copenhagen also agrees to increase the U.S. military presence on the island.

During a session of the European Parliament, Danish MP Anders Vistisen made an obscene remark during a meeting of the European Parliament about U.S. President Donald Trump's recent statements regarding Greenland.